A story: At dinnertime, I went over to the Billy Goat to get my nightly triple-cheeseburger and I saw our new Senator Mark Kirk! I guess he was having a beer with some meathead blackhawks fan. I think he was tutoring him?

They didn't let the media get close enough to hear the conversation. But if we were close enough, my guess it that we would have heard this:

Kirk: So have you thought about what you want to do this semester?

Alexi: I dunno. I like computers? Could I take some classes in computers?

There are few things more satisfying than hot, crispy, thinly-sliced fried potatoes. I tend to respect folks who cut Idaho russets all day long, par-blanching them first, and then, right before an order comes in, frying them a second time to crisp them up. It doesn't mean serving them soggy and limp, but rather, extra-crispy (the result of an oil bath of about 360-375 degrees). I do still find myself asking for them a little well-done, just to make sure they're properly cooked.

Some places go a few steps further, and rather than fry them up in standard vegetable oil, they use some tasty alternatives, such as beef fat (hello Top Notch) or duck fat (mazel tov, Mr. Sohn). I also realized that I can't just limit my parameters to Chicago proper. This week, we're expanding our boundries, and including the 'burbs as well. I look forward to the heated debate and constructive criticism that will inevitably follow.

By nearly every measure, the GOP had a big night on Tuesday. But what about things closer to home? Who were the big winners and losers in Illinois?

That's where things get much more interesting. In the Land of Lincoln, Obama, and Blagojevich, outcomes both confirmed and defied national trends. And even though votes are still being counted in two key races - Governor and the 8th U.S. Congressional District - a mixed picture of winners and losers is beginning to emerge.

Here's how it looks:

The Winners

Cook County Democratic Party: Lost amidst all the attention paid to Republican successes locally and nationally was the fact that the Cook County Democratic Party "got it done" when it counted last night. Despite the bruised egos that came with the loss of the U.S.

Last summer, before my bride and I stepped out on a bright and clear Iowa afternoon to be married in her parents’ backyard, we kept peering through the windows to see who’d arrived. My cousins. Her cousins. Aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, siblings, a sea of friends: white, Latino, black, Jewish, Asian, queers, non-queers, Christians of all sorts, agnostics, atheists – I kid you not, at least two Muslims.

We were in Iowa to celebrate our union because, like a lot of other couples, we wanted it to happen in a place that had meaning. And Iowa is where my bride was born and raised, where her family still resides, and where I’ve come to believe all that is good about America is plentiful.

As Chris Jones was too tactful to do so, it’s left to tacky me to point out that the most exciting thing about Remy Bumppo’s new Artistic Director Timothy Douglas is not that he’s New York-based, not that he’s directed in Chicago before, not that’s worked at Yale and Actors’ Theatre of Louisville and the Taper Forum, but that he’s black. Eventually I trust we’ll get to a place where the color of a new artistic director’s skin will be no more interesting than the color of her hair; but we’re nowhere near that in this country, and certainly not in Chicago, which boasts a theater community as segregated as the city itself.

Paul Greenberg has spent much of his life around fish. A lifelong, avid fisherman himself, his latest book is, in some respects, going to do for seafood what Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" did for factory-raised cows and corn: it will illuminate and educate diners about what is really going on in our food supply system.

I met Greenberg for a drink at Old Town Social last week, shortly before he was to give a talk to diners at North Pond, where a sustainably-raised seafood dinner was on the agenda. Among other things, we talked about the state of fisheries in the Great Lakes - something he's been studying lately.

By day, Ian McCabe slings sliced meats at Potbelly. By night, he auditions, takes classes, and generally gets up onstage whenever he can. Just like hordes of other young theater wannabes who move to the city. But McCabe, 22, has hit the ground running. And naked.